Handwriting Without Tears

The first grade continues to learn and practice the proper formation of lowercase letters. To practice, we used sentence strips and chalk boards. On the chalk boards, we first write in chalk the new letter, then we take a damp sponge and "erase" the letter by tracing it. Finally we take a dry paper towel and re-trace the wet letter. This all reinforces what we learned. The children enjoyed the hands on practice.

Native Americans continued...

Today, we read Whale In the Sky which is a tale from the Northwest American Indians about totem poles. We learned that carvers would carve a trunk of a tree in order to tell a story. We practiced this idea by making our very own totem poles which we hung on our class bulletin board. Putting their skills to the test, the children not only used vibrant colors like the Native Americans used but made our own totem poles by putting the animal pictures in ABC order. They were so excited to have their work displayed in the new classroom.

Native Americans

In Social Studies we have been learning about Native Americans. We have been comparing and contrasting different tribes and their lifestyles from around the world.
We started off with the Inuit Tribe learning they were from the Arctic, lived in igloos, wore clothes made from animal skin and fur, the men hunted and fished, the women sewed and cooked, the sons learned from their father and daughters from their mothers. We also learned their main source of food was seals.
The Wampanoag Tribe was located in Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island areas. They lived in wetus-which were dome shaped houses like igloos but made from cedar saplings that were bent into an arch and covered with bark from poplar or ash trees. There was a hole in the roof to let the smoke from the cooking fire. The men hunted and the women collected berries and planted. The children also helped out their parents.
We have now moved on to the Cherokee Tribe and learned they originally lived in house made from clay but evolved to log houses.
We read The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush which is about an Indian boy named Little Gopher whois smaller than all of the other children in his tribe and not able to ride horses, run and shoot bows and arrows with them. He finds out that he has a special talent when a Dream-Vision comes to him and we spends most of his life trying to paint a picture as pure as the night sky. After we read the story we decorated a bag to resemble Native American pottery and filled it with paintbrushes.

Force Vs. Surfaces

In continuing our Force and Motion Unit, first grade talked about how gravity is a force. It pulls us down to the earth. We all jumped in the air to see exactly how gravity worked. We compared it to a really strong magnet.
First grade also talked about how surfaces effect force. We did an experiment tying a string to a wood block on one end and an empty plastic cup on the other. We put the wooden block on the smooth table top and hung the cup from the end. Adding one penny at a time, we counted to see how many it would take to make the block move on the smooth surface. It took 50 pennies to make it move. Then we did the same thing again but this time with a piece of rough sandpaper under the wooden block. It took over 150 pennies to make the block move. This showed us that less force is needed to move an object on smooth surfaces then on rough ones.

Force and Motion

Kindergarten started a new unit in science, Force and Motion!
Points they learned:

• Force is a push or pull
• A push moves something away from you
• A pull moves something towards you
• When an object moves, it is in motion
• How an object is in motion depends on how big/heavy the object is as well as the amount of force
• Using simple things can help move things easier like a ramp or lever

Morah tied a rope to a toy car and placed on bottom of ramp. We gave once short quick pull first with a little force then with a lot and discussed our observations.
Next we made a ramp and rolled a ball with as little force as possible and also another time with strong force and discussed our observations.
The children also noticed to throw a ball and get it to certain people (depending on if they were sitting further or closer) they had to use more or less force.

First grade pointed out that outside the building there is a ramp. We took our car and ball and decided to try our experiments on it as well.